The Media Take a Beating in Cannes Films Headed to US Pictures Portray TV and Even Film as Negative Influences

Article excerpt

The Cannes filmfest is an influential media event, reminding the
world that cinema and video, its technological neighbor, are
today's dominant forms of mass communication and expression.

Cannes never tires of celebrating this fact, and its recently
ended 50th-anniversary program was no exception. Ironically,
though, many of the individual movies on view took an opposite
approach - portraying various media, including film and video
themselves, as dubious and even negative influences on contemporary
life.

Since many of these pictures will be playing on American screens
before long, it's important to note the messages they'll be
carrying to audiences.
There's no way to tell yet whether moviegoers, constantly
bombarded by Hollywood's promotional machine, will become more
media-critical when they see these films in local theaters. But it
seems certain that the climate is changing among filmmakers
themselves, who are becoming more inclined to question the roles
played by media in cheapening our cultural environment.
The trend got under way on opening night at Cannes when The
Fifth Element made its European debut. Since then the picture has
excelled at the American box office, underscoring Cannes's
importance as a bellwether of new directions in the global film
industry.
Although the hero of Luc Besson's movie is Bruce Willis as a
cabdriver saving Earth from extraterrestrial doom, its most
attention-grabbing secondary character is a futuristic TV
personality who floods the story with flamboyant behavior that
makes today's trash television look tame. His antics are a savage
parody of current tendencies in popular entertainment.
TV also takes a beating in L.A. Confidential, due in the United
States later this year. It focuses on a police officer (Guy Pearce)
who believes he can enforce the law without sacrificing personal
integrity. It's uncertain how much he can rely on a colleague
(Kevin Spacey) whose priorities are swayed by his role as adviser
to a fact-based television show. More complications come from a
camera-snapping journalist (Danny DeVito) who sets up the sleazy
situations his scandal-sheet then luridly exposes.
Two pictures took movie violence as their primary theme. The End
of Violence, filmed in Los Angeles by German director Wim Wenders,
centers on a Hollywood producer (Bill Pullman) who's unprepared for
violence in his life even though he's long exploited it in his
movies.
Wenders's message loses its impact amid convoluted plot
twists, but the same can't be said of Funny Games, in which
Austrian director Michael Hanneke shows a middle-class family
being terrorized by two sadistic men. What might have been a tale
of gratuitous horror is transformed by several moments when the
villains address the audience directly, prompting us to examine our
motives for watching such repellent stuff. …